RE: Content negotiation: GIF v. PNG

From: Peter Foti (PeterF) (PeterF@SystolicNetworks.com)
Date: Mon, Mar 05 2001

  • Next message: Brian Gilkison: "RE: Content negotiation: GIF v. PNG"

    Message-ID: <A10A983C9DFBD4119F0300104B2EA6B7028C6B@zippy.bizfon.com>
    From: "Peter Foti (PeterF)" <PeterF@SystolicNetworks.com>
    To: "'www-validator@w3.org'" <www-validator@w3.org>
    Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 15:34:02 -0500 
    Subject: RE: Content negotiation: GIF v. PNG
    
    I question why this is done at all?  Why is PNG the preferred format?
    It seems that if the validator was just changed to always offer the GIF
    file, then no one would have this problem, and the world would be a
    better place! :)  There would be no additional server configuration
    required, plus you wouldn't have to worry about supporting both a PNG
    version and a GIF version of the file.  It would seem logical to rely on
    the method that is most portable and requires the least amount of
    configuring.
    
    -Peter
    
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: www-validator-request@w3.org
    [mailto:www-validator-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Brian Gilkison
    Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 3:14 PM
    To: www-validator@w3.org
    Subject: Content negotiation: GIF v. PNG
    
    
    Some time ago (late '99), Terje gave the following explanation as to why
    there was no ".gif" or ".png" extension on the validator <img> tags,
    i.e., those generated for validated pages, ala:
    
      <p>
        <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img border="0"
            src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401"
            alt="Valid HTML 4.01!" height="31" width="88"></a>
      </p>
    
    Terje wrote:
    > The filename extension is left out to let the server negotiate with
    the
    > client whether to return a GIF file or a PNG file. PNG is the
    preferred
    > format but not all clients can handle it so there has to be a fallback
    > to the GIF files. This will of course fail if the server running the
    > validator does not have content negotiation enabled.
    
    Although more an Apache question, exactly what directives are required
    for
    this to happen?  The above code works unchanged on my ISP's server,
    presuming I have an .htaccess file with an "Options MultiViews" entry,
    but
    on my personal server it doesn't...  What other directives besides
    "Options Multiviews' might be required?
    
    Brian
    
    >  Brian Gilkison           | http://w3.one.net/~gilkison/ <
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